09/25/06 "Information
Clearing House" -- -- Since September 11th, 2001, "We the People"
have had ample opportunity for self-examination. When we look
around us, "First world" vs. "Third world", if we are honest
with ourselves we must recognize that the democracies comprising
Western Civilization have collectively become the next world
dictator. This dictator is a tyrant unforgiving in its
self-righteousness because it gets its very authority from "We
the People". We have, inadvertently, through our own
irresponsibility and apathy towards participating in our own
government, stepped into the shoes of the oppressor.

From those shoes we can see clearly: There are no "Islamic
terrorists" in the Middle East.

Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. The IRA were terrorists.
Baader-Meinhoff were terrorists.

These were terrorists because they had the right to free
speech... They had the right to assemble in protest and to form
political parties... They had the right to vote for whom they
pleased... They had the right to run for office themselves to
work for peaceful change. They were terrorists because they
chose violence instead of working for change within the system
available to them.

The Fundamentalist Muslims of the Middle East who are fighting
us now, on the other hand, have never had such rights. Our
American government and the governments that support it, ie.
Western Civilization, have never allowed Muslims any method
other than violent resistance for addressing grievances.

The most coherent historical analogy to current Western
strategies in the Middle East today is the 19th century American
belief in the "Manifest Destiny" of the United States, and its
impact on Native American tribes. As part of American Manifest
Destiny, Native American lands were carved up by force of arms
at the request of merchants, farmers, and ranchers. Native
American tribes were forced onto tiny "reservations"
administered by "Indian Agents". Today this process is viewed by
many historians as ethnic cleansing of holocaust proportions.

As European Americans justified their violent conquest of
Western North America, the Native American who fought
desperately against the American military and the civilian
population for his land, people, religion, and, yes, freedom,
was labeled a "savage". Rebellious "Indians" were viewed as
less-than-human, and not worthy of the rights shared by the rest
of mankind. Said American General Philip Sheridan, "The only
good Indians I ever saw were dead."

A glance at a world history book tells us that our 20th century
Western Civilization carved up Islamic lands into political
entities that suited our "strategic" purposes. Since that time,
by supporting tyrants, "shahs", kings, and anyone else who would
do our bidding, including Saddam Hussein when it was convenient,
the West has, by these proxies, purposely oppressed the human
rights of Muslims in the Middle East.

In fact, in its quest for a "stable" oil supply and new markets,
Western Civilization has consistently denied Middle Eastern
Muslims the rights and equalities shared by the rest of us in
the community of nations.

When a spark of these rights does happen to be ignited, as they
were in Lebanon and Palestine, with rudimentary free elections
that garnered many Western compliments and promises... As soon
as the Muslim people made their will known to be contrary to the
will of Western Civilization, they were labeled "terrorists" and
immediately crushed and denied these rights once again.

In reality, the Muslims who fight us, including Osama bin Laden
and his Al-Qaeda, freedom fighters in the truest sense of the
word, comparable to our own founders, who, after all, also
oppressed women - even held slaves - until they enlightened
themselves.

What the USA and its Western democratic counterparts actually
fight today are religiously devout men and women, righteous
ten-commandment-keeping people according to our own moral and
religious codes - from Osama bin Laden down to the last innocent
Palestinian killed simply for living in Gaza.

It is not, in the least, hyperbole to say that the
Fundamentalist Muslims fighting us today are sacrificing their
lives for their brothers and sisters; they are heroically
defending their homelands, their cultures, and their religion,
from the corruption, crime, and decadence intrinsic to Western
capitalism as we know it.

They are people just like you and I. They are fighting the
international tyranny of "We the People" who did not bother to
follow what our governments and corporations have done to
"third-world" nations in order to turn a profit. Those of us who
are supposed to run our government and corporations, but who, in
fact, were too lazy to care what government did on behalf of the
corporate mentality.

But that does not change the fundamental truth that Muslims are
defending their homelands, culture, and religion, using
strategies already employed and legitimized by Western
Civilization itself over Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi,
and many other "battlefields", where the homes and businesses of
innocent civilians were also considered military targets. It
does not change the fundamental truth that Muslims do not fear
death because, unlike most of "Western Civilization", they don't
just mouth the words, but really believe they are rightfully
fighting for God and the survival of their culture and religion.
It does not change the fact that Western Civilization's
continuing worldwide oppression of Muslims will result in the
collapse of democracy everywhere, because democracy is a system
based on government by the people, not the wealthy elite... A
system, in the USA at least, founded on the fundamental truth of
the equality of all before God.

History is clear: No oppressor who has attempted, by force of
arms, to implement ideological change among a populace has ever
succeeded. By claiming to believe this war is righteous and
winnable, our government and the governments of Western
Civilization that support it must ignore history and the very
world around us. They must twist history to support their own
version of "fighting terror", and constantly invent dangers
which must be foisted upon their people in order that they can
maintain power. In so doing, they have sold the souls of their
peoples to the arms industry, to the creators and armorers of
the next holocaust.

Is such a "civilization" of any real value to mankind, a
civilization based on force of arms seemingly doomed to repeat
the errors of its own history? If we are democracies, surely the
solution to war is up to us - the people.

Today there is only one way to save our planet from never-ending
war and oppression. We must withdraw all Western military and
corporate interests from the Middle East. We must encourage
democracy there through open, peaceful, positive methods - the
types of methods that eventually brought down even the Soviet
Union.

The Qur'an, the single authority for all sects of Islam,
requires Muslims to accept peace - if a peace is offered that
will stop the oppression and the corruption that has obligated
Muslims to fight in the first place.

Continuing our present course of war only insures that more
Muslims will answer the Qur'an's call for self-defense of the
Islamic religion. On the other hand, reversing our course,
seeking peace, and positively supporting Middle Eastern Muslim
peoples as they seek democracy and self-empowerment through
self-determination, will remove all motivation for Muslim
resistance.

The West must stop confusing "truth", "liberty", "God", and
"democracy" with the brand of secular capitalism that has served
it so well. The secular capitalism that drives Western economies
is not compatible with the religion of Islam. We in the West
must learn to live with this fact, and allow Muslims to develop
their own democratic systems and economies. In the West, secular
capitalism must re-invent itself under a new paradigm. Unlimited
growth, limitless resources, and unrestricted market hegemony
are obsolete in today's world. Secular capitalism must evolve or
face extinction.

The Muslims who fight us are not criminals. They are not evil.
They are not cowards. They are not "fascists".

To bring peace to our globe, all we in the West have to do is
stand strong together for what we have always claimed to stand
for: The ideal that all people are created equal, with God-given
rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We cannot fight our own noble impulses for defending house and
home, which, with our eyes open, we can all see reflected in the
freedom fighters of Islam today.

We must stop fighting this war, stop endlessly piling war-torn
bodies upon the bodies of the nearly 3,000 Americans who
perished on September 11th, 2001. We must begin making their
deaths meaningful for our planet, we must honor their sacrifice
as of the God of Peace, and not of the god of war.

Unlike the Native Americans of the 19th century - many of whom
were tribal and warred among themselves, unable to unite to
fight their common foe - the Muslims of the Middle East share a
powerful commonality: The Qur'an and the religion of Islam.

To have peace we must obliterate our own ignorance of the
cultures, traditions, scriptures, and religions of our fellow
human beings - with whom we share our planet.

United in peace humanity might stand, but divided by war we will
certainly fall.

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